The Storyteller

by Pierre Jarawan

  None of the girls had ever set foot in my flat. Not even Hakim had been in it since the day I moved in. I’d started my librarianship course at the end of 2001, a few months after Yasmin had gone to uni. The following summer I’d moved out of Hakim’s. It was now 14 February 2005. For three years I’d put off potential visitors with a litany of excuses, because I knew that anyone in their right mind would get an awful shock.

  “Samir!”

  Chris was waving from the other end of the aisle. I put the last book back on the shelf and made my way towards him. I could tell from his grin that I wasn’t going to like what was coming.

  “A visitor for you,” he said, thumping me on the shoulder. “I think you should finish up now.”

  “But I can’t,” I protested, “I still have things to do.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Chris patted my shoulder, propelling me forward at the same time. “Tomorrow is another day.”

  Aurea was standing at the loans desk. She had a scarf wrapped round her neck, her eyes were shining from the cold outside, her cheeks glowing. She beamed when she saw me.

  “I figured I’d just come and collect you,” she said.

  “What a nice surprise,” I lied and gave her a quick peck.

  “How about a walk before dinner? It’s pretty cold out, but the air is so crisp and clear.”

  “I’m not sure I can get away this early.”

  I hadn’t noticed Chris standing only a few metres away, pretending to leaf through a magazine. Now he turned to us.

  “Of course you can go, Samir. Enjoy the rest of the day, you young things,” he said, shoving his glasses up his nose and turning to Aurea. “That was a great idea, to show up here. Fresh air is just what young Samir needs.”

  I could have throttled him.

  Aurea beamed even brighter. She’d probably been a bit unsure; now she was relieved to have the boss’s official blessing.

  “Right. Let’s be off,” she said cheerfully.

  I forced a smile but I was sweating from every pore.

  “OK. I just have to get my jacket.” I needed to get down to the archives in a hurry.

  “Your jacket’s here, Samir,” said Chris, full of bonhomie. He held out the jacket so that all I had to do was slip into it.

  Bloody idiot, I thought. I did my best to suppress my rising panic.

  “Do you want to go ahead?” I asked Aurea. “I think I left my mobile downstairs. I’ll run down for it and catch up with you.”

  What a lame excuse. But the moment I said it, I realised that my mobile really wasn’t in my jacket pocket. Where had I left it? My thoughts were racing. What if I didn’t get another chance to go downstairs?

  “Do I have to call security to get you out of here?” Chris laughed and looked at Aurea to see if she liked his joke. But she was giving me a sceptical look.

  In that instant, what could only be my mobile phone began to ring. Some readers shot indignant looks at the signs with the crossed-out mobile phone symbol. I patted my trouser pockets. Nothing there. I checked my jacket pockets. Not there either. Several heads had turned in our direction.

  Chris raised his hands in a placating gesture and whispered impatiently out the side of his mouth, “Is that your phone?”

  I went round to the other side of the loans desk. There it was, ringing away, exactly where I’d stood piling books onto the trolley earlier.

  “I don’t believe it!” I said, with a little too much hysteria in my voice. “It’s here, not in the archive!”

  Aurea watched the whole scene with a curious air. The phone stopped ringing as soon as I picked it up. I checked the display.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Hakim,” I said. “That’s odd. I’ve got several missed calls from him.”

  “Right. Out with the pair of you now,” said Chris.

  Aurea took my hand and pulled me towards the exit. Distracted, I shoved my mobile into my jacket pocket.

  The air was cold and bracing outside. It was late afternoon, twilight on the way. Everyone was wrapped up, their frozen faces framed by hoods or woolly caps as they walked along the street preceded by the white clouds of their breath.

  Aurea latched onto my arm and nestled into me. We were still standing on the steps outside the library.

  “Gorgeous, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Good idea to go for a walk.”

  My temples were throbbing. I tried to convince myself that Chris wouldn’t go downstairs again today. Why would he? He hardly ever went down to the archives. The other thing bothering me was all the missed calls from Hakim.

  “Hold my gloves for a sec, if you don’t mind,” I said.

  I rang Hakim’s number but he didn’t answer.

  “Maybe he’s got something on this evening and just wanted to let you know, in case you were going to drop by?”

  “Unlikely,” I said.

  We went down the steps and crossed the plaza. The farther we got from the library, the more I felt the nausea rising. I scrabbled for an excuse to go back, but Chris was bound to intercept me and usher me out again.

  “… for dinner?” I tuned in at the tail-end of Aurea’s question.

  “Hmm?”

  “Where do you fancy going for dinner?”

  “I … em … I don’t really know. Any suggestions?”

  “What are you in the mood for?”

  “I’m easy.” I was really nervous now. Too many open questions. I hated not being in control. Things were getting out of hand.

  “I was thinking we could eat somewhere near here and go to your place after?” she said shyly.

  My flat was certainly closer to town than Aurea’s, or rather, her flat was so far out in the sticks that it would have been daft to insist on going back to her place.

  My mind was too muddled to make excuses. I was in trouble and something was up with Hakim.

  “OK. Why not?”

  “Great! I didn’t bring my pyjamas, though,” she said, “but maybe I won’t need them.” She grinned mischievously and stood on tiptoes to give me a kiss. Her lips were cold but the kiss was warm and tender.

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m worried about Hakim. Would you mind if we check in on him?”

  Aurea seemed put out.

  “Well, OK” she said. “I don’t suppose it matters where we go for a walk as long as we’re together, right?”

  I didn’t want her tagging along. Hakim rarely phoned me, never mind five times in a row. Something must have happened.

  “I think I know why he’s been ringing,” I blurted, delighted with my brainwave. “I’m such an idiot. I left your surprise present at his place yesterday. I bet that’s what he wanted to tell me!”

  “A surprise?”

  “Yes, for Valentine’s Day. Did you think I wouldn’t have anything?”

  She stopped in her tracks. I didn’t expect my words to have such an effect. There were tears in her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” I asked.

  She brushed the tears away, embarrassed.

  “Well, you know … Me and you … I didn’t really know where you stood … We never really talked about whether we …”

  “Whether we’re a couple?”

  She nodded.

  “Of course we are!” I burst out without thinking. I’d already hung myself out to dry, so it didn’t matter what I said next. “That’s why I want us to have a really wonderful evening …”

  “So do I,” she sighed, flinging her arms around me.

  “But not without the surprise! Listen, I’ll just run over to Hakim’s and get it. Please—I really want you to have it today. In the meantime, you can pick out a fab restaurant. I’ll ring you, you’ll tell me where you are, we’ll have a lovely time, and afterwards …”

  Oh God, what was
I doing?

  “Yes,” she smiled. I kissed her before either of us could say another word, took her head between my hands, and wiped her tears away with my thumbs.

  “Twenty minutes,” I said, already pulling away from her. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  “OK. See you soon,” she replied, waving at me. I felt rotten, seeing her so moved.

  By the time I reached our old neighbourhood I was lathered in sweat. I shelved all thought of how to extricate myself from the mess with Aurea. Right now it was Hakim who mattered. If it turned out there was nothing wrong with him, I’d even fit in a quick detour back past the library.

  I stumbled through the front door and climbed the stairs. As usual, Hakim’s door wasn’t locked. I could hear the TV when I went in.

  “Hakim?”

  No answer. I knew my way. Down the hall and turn right into the living room.

  “Hakim?”

  He was sitting silently in front of the TV. His face was frozen, his eyes fixed in an expressionless trance.

  “Hakim, what’s the matter?”

  I heard sirens, took in what was on the TV screen and nearly jumped out of my skin. As if on auto-pilot, my hand reached into my jacket pocket. I rang Aurea without taking my eyes off the TV.

  “I’m in Lemar,” she announced cheerfully as soon as she answered. I could hear voices and the clatter of cutlery in the background. “It’s an Afghan restaurant. OK?”

  “I can’t,” I heard myself say.

  “What do you mean? Samir?”

  “I can’t come to meet you,” I said in a flat voice.

  “But … But … Why not?”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Samir. Tell me …”

  I hung up. Right then, I didn’t care how Aurea would take the brush-off. I didn’t even care if they found out what I’d been up to in the archives. I just stood there watching the images flickering on TV. Rushed, shaky shots trying to capture what was happening: shattered glass, blackened walls, smoke and flames, and wounded people everywhere in dirty, blood-soaked bandages. The explosion had blasted a deep crater in the street, and thick smoke was billowing out of it. Emergency services were trying to get near the flames, past burnt-out skeletons of cars and screaming people holding their heads in disbelief.

  “Beirut,” I said, dropping my mobile.

  Still no response from Hakim.

  “What happened?” I asked, though I guessed the answer already.

  Hakim spoke without looking at me.

  “Hariri,” he said. “Hariri’s been murdered.”

  -

  13

  I hang up. Now that the tension’s gone, I’m overcome with exhaustion. I haven’t shaved since I got here. My cheeks are stubbly and my hair is glued to my head with sweat. I haven’t slept in two days, or left the hotel. I didn’t even go down for breakfast. Instead, the plates piled up on the desk. I got to know every detail of this room. I waited with feverish impatience for him to call. I only rang her once, late at night, when I figured I’d be least likely to miss a call from him. She sounded alarmed but I told her I had a lead, that it was good news for us, for me.

  Then he rang, just a few minutes ago.

  “Hello?”

  “Samir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sinan Aziz.”

  “That took ages.”

  “I’m not a magician. Our friend is not easily contactable. If you knew how he lives, you’d be congratulating me on how quickly it happened.”

  “Does he want to meet?”

  “I don’t know if he wants to, but he’s willing to.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “He lives in Brih, a small village in the Chouf Mountains.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know if he’d want me to.”

  “So how am I supposed to find him?”

  “Believe me, once you get to Brih, you’ll find him.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you doing this on purpose?”

  “No. I’ve better things to be doing than giving you a hard time. There are no street names in Brih.”

  “So am I supposed to knock on every door and say I’m looking for a man but I don’t know his name or what he looks like?”

  “It might be enough to knock on the first door you see and say you’re looking for a man who’s a Christian.”

  “A Christian.”

  “Just trust me. You’ll find him once you get there.”

  -

  14

  We felt the explosion on our street. Its shockwaves made our houses tremble. Even here, thousands of kilometres away, we knew that the crater this bomb left in the heart of Beirut was more than a hole in the ground. It was an abyss, a burning, soot-black chasm, and the world stared into it from the edges, terrified that it could cause cracks that would lead first Beirut and then the whole Middle East to collapse.

  People poured out onto our street. No one wanted to be indoors. Everyone needed to talk, to be with others. A cold fog dimmed the street lights, giving the whole scene a funereal air. I stood with my hands in my pockets among numbed people speaking to each other in a mixture of grief, horror, and outrage. Someone had propped a framed portrait of Hariri against a tree. We lit candles and placed them beside it. Some folks kept saying, over and over, how much they loved him. Others said they’d always known he’d die like this—he had been too outspoken in his criticism of Syria; Bashar al-Assad didn’t tolerate enemies. And in hushed tones some sombre-faced people were predicting exactly what would come to pass in the following weeks.

  I first heard the term Cedar Revolution in a TV news bulletin. Thousands of people were gathered on Martyrs’ Square in Beirut, waving red-and-white scarves and holding pictures of Hariri aloft. Estimates suggested over fifty thousand people. They were chanting Hurriya, Siyada, Istiqlaal—freedom, sovereignty, independence; and Haqiqa, Hurriya, Wahda wataniya—truth, freedom, national unity. The demonstrators consisted of the anti-Syrian opposition and its supporters, as well as pro-Hariri supporters waving their blue ribbons. There had been anti-Syrian protests before, in the 1990s, but they’d been violently suppressed. Now Christians, Sunnis, and Druze were demonstrating side by side, and no one was stopping them. They all shared the same goal: complete withdrawal of the Syrian army and resignation of the pro-Syrian government under Omar Karami, who had become prime minister after Hariri’s resignation. Grief over Hariri’s murder was tempered with a sense of optimism that spread throughout the land. A breath of spring air heralded big changes, the quiet promise of a future, rumours of freedom and democracy, the abolition of a pseudo-state, the end of the post-war era—the end, indeed, of a pact with the devil. No substantial evidence was found to prove that the Syrians were behind the assassination, but international pressure was huge, and demands for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon became increasingly loud. So how did the demonstrators defend themselves against the all-powerful state that had decided their fate for decades? They toppled their own government because it served Syria. After Hariri had resigned in 1998, he became prime minister again in 2000. President Émile Lahoud, who had been installed by the Syrians, did his best to force Hariri onto the political side lines; Hariri resigned again in 2004 and was replaced by pro-Syrian Omar Karami. Now, Hariri’s violent death posed a threat not just to President Lahoud but, more importantly, to his protectors, the Syrian army.

  In the turbulent weeks following the assassination, the deep divisions in Lebanon became apparent to the whole world. The desire for radical change was enormous, yet only a few days after the Cedar Revolution had begun and demands for Syrian withdrawal had grown l
ouder, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets demanding that the Syrians stay. For many years, the Shias in Lebanon had been at the bottom of the pile socially, economically, and politically. Despite being the largest religious group, Shia Muslims lived a marginal existence on the southern outskirts of Beirut and in the south of the country, where the problem was not Syria but Israel. Yet they had been gaining power since Hezbollah—originally a militia during the civil war—had become a political party after the war ended. Now the Shia regarded the protests against the Lebanese government and its Syrian protectors as a provocation. The prospect of Syrian withdrawal posed an unspoken threat to the Shias’ growing influence, as it could lead to the disarming of Hezbollah, the only militia that had refused to lay down its weapons when the civil war ended.

  Hezbollah had forced the Israelis to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000, which had been celebrated as a kind of liberation at the time. Many seemed to have forgotten that it was Hezbollah in the first place that had largely been responsible for the 1996 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. This was in retaliation for Hezbollah rockets fired into northern Israel. Now, even though most of the Christian parties and the other civil-war militias acknowledged Hezbollah’s role in liberating southern Lebanon, they felt very uneasy when they saw huge numbers of pro-Syrian demonstrators—up to eight hundred thousand, mainly Shias—rally to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s call. Hezbollah now seemed a much more threatening power, instrumentalised by outside forces, and the only militia that still had all its weapons.

  In the end, the Cedar Revolution succeeded. The last Syrian troops left Lebanon on 24 April 2005—about two months after Hariri’s assassination—and the anti-Syrian demonstrators were hailed as heroes of democracy. But until that time bombs kept exploding.The unrest was accompanied by assassinations too. Most of the targets were in the anti-Syrian opposition camp, and the assassins were believed to be part of pro-Syrian terrorist groups trying to prevent a Syrian withdrawal. On 2 June, a car bomb killed Samir Kassir, a prominent journalist whose anti-Syrian views were well known. Lebanon wasn’t just rumbling now, it was quaking. The government was under pressure, and despite its assurances, the threat of civil war was more real than it had been since the last one ended.